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BlackBerry comeback underway on home turf

On the global stage, BlackBerry is still hurting — for the first time ever, Microsoft’s Windows Phone market share topped BlackBerry in the first quarter this year to take the No.3 spot in the smartphone platform war. We’re still very early on in BlackBerry’s comeback attempt though, and progress is being made in some key markets. Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt points to BlackBerry’s home turf in Canada as one of the markets where the vendor has seen good early response to its new BlackBerry Z10 and Q10 smartphones, and BlackBerry’s progress thus far has been impressive according to his figures.

In a recent research note, McCourt says that BlackBerry’s share of the smartphone market fell to an embarrassing 6% in Canada to close out the fourth quarter last year. With just one new smartphone (Z10) available for less than 2 months, however, BlackBerry’s Canadian market share more than doubled to 13.5% in the first quarter of 2013.

“I think the Q10 will see much better demand than the Z10, as I have to believe the primary reason users are still on BlackBerry is for the physical keyboard,” McCourt told AllThingsD. “That being said, a lot of that demand may get stretched out over a few quarters, as it will take time for enterprises to adopt BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, which is needed to support the Q10.”

According to the analyst, Apple held 40% of the smartphone market in Q1 2013, down sequentially from 44%, while Samsung’s share slid to 30% and LG stayed flat at 9%. The remaining crumbs were split between Nokia, Motorola and a few smaller brands.